During interrogation, Suron Debbarma, who had once been a close lieutenant of the dissident NLFT leader Nayanbasi Jamatya, said, “It was the strict vigil in the NLFT hideout in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh that prevented us from escaping with more arms and ammunition.”

Rawat said Suron Debbarma had been moving with his group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and came over yesterday with advance information. “He and his colleagues are under interrogation in our battalion headquarters at Bagafa in South Tripura and he has already made major disclosures. He said the entire NLFT group in Bangladesh is reeling under a major resource crunch and many of the activists are keen to surrender,” Rawat said.

In a separate incident, two more listed NLFT rebels — Bishanjay Tripura and Paritosh Debbarma — laid down their arms at Ananda Hari Roaja Para village, 48km south west of Chhawmanu police station last night.

Nepal Chandra Das, deputy inspector-general (operations), said the two militants had reached the Ananda Hari Roaja Para police outpost last evening and surrendered to inspector Uddam Debbarma, with only Taka 800 in Bangladeshi currency.

“They are under interrogation and we hope to extract valuable information from them,” Das said.